Vendors of assemblies can state that applications should use a newer version of an assembly by including a publisher policy file with the upgraded assembly. The publisher policy file specifies assembly redirection and code base settings, and uses the same format as an application configuration file. The publisher policy file is compiled into an assembly and placed in the global assembly cache.

There are three steps involved in creating a publisher policy:
1. Create a publisher policy file.
2. Create a publisher policy assembly.
3. Add the publisher policy assembly to the global assembly cache.